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7 views3 pages

Analysis Essay

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hmc3104
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Calderon

Hailey Calderon

Professor Frank

ENC 1102

02/26/23

“The Art of The Act”

The constant thought of identity throughout can be overwhelming, the concept of belonging

and fitting in, finding the people who relate and understand. For those who do find their people

the feeling is great but for those on the flip side they begin to question themselves as a person.

The easiest escape route is to pretend, if they don’t like this version why not try something else.

Not only does this façade negatively impact a person but it also affects the people around them.

“Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” by ZZ Packer demonstrates how hiding one’s true self and

pretending to be someone else invites confusion and loneliness into everyday life.

Somewhere as common as school, a place that invites diversity and encourages expression yet

there is still opportunity to feel lost. To feel like an outsider, unsure of where to sit or who to talk

to, overwhelmed by the environment around you. “The problem with Commons was that it was

too big; its ceilings was as high as a cathedrals, but below it there was no awestruck worshippers,

only eighteen-year-olds at heavy wooden tables, chatting over veal patties and Jell-O”. Simply

comparing the height of the ceilings to cathedrals illustrates how small Dina felt at her school.

The environment of a place has impactful effects on ones mental health and this was evident in

Dinas action and behavior. The way she carried herself around school, not wanting to be
Calderon2

anywhere but her room, isolating herself from everyone around her. “..and made our way

through the maze of tables. The Korean had a table. Each singing group had a table. The crew

team sat at a long table of its own. We passed the black table. Heidi was so plump and

moonfaced that the sheer quantity of her flesh accentuated just how white she was.” Both Dinas

race and social class affected her sense of belonging and how others treated her, Dina didn’t

think people would accept her in her true form and that’s why she disguised herself which only

intensified her thoughts of being unwanted and feeling lonely.

Pretending in life is more than an act put on for other people, it begins to affect one personally,

causing one to lose sight of who they are and what they believe. Dinas therapist is essential to

this story in helping her realize what her life has been. A life of lies and pretending, fantasizing a

moment into something it is not, “This appeared a surprise to him, “I think your having a crisis

of identity he said.” This was evident in multiple areas of Dinas life, one aspect being her

confusion of her sexuality. Dina didn’t want to picture Heidi as a romantic interest but actions

that they partake in together show otherwise, Dina even very offended when her therapist

mention her liking a girl. As Dina talks to her therapist she expresses how the word “pretending”

stuck with her she acknowledged that she’s been pretending from a young age. “I remembered

the morning of my mother’s funeral. I’d been given milk to settle my stomach. I’d pretend it was

coffee. I imagined I was drinking coffee elsewhere.” Dina took her heartache and tragedy to

elsewhere, she took the bad and turned into something enjoyable, something worth living for but

at the cost of her reality. Hiding the emotion only invites further disparity and confusion into

one’s life, ignoring the reality of her situation is making it difficult to distinguish who she is and

what she wants in her life.


Calderon3

Throughout “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” Packers uses death to symbolize how far stretched

Dina truly is from reality. Dina was unable to accept her own mothers death and when her closest

and only friend Heidi’s mother dies, Dina is numb to the situation. “And she’s going to be dead

for a long time.” Dina says to Heidi, showing no empathy or compassion to Heidi during this

difficult time that Dina had once gone through herself. Dina doesn’t attend the funeral which

resulted in losing the only friend she’s ever had, again taking steps further and further away from

finding what’s truly important to her. She ends up living with an aunt still stuck in a fantasy,

imagining that Heidi will come and visit her. It is a never ending cycle Dina has wrapped herself

into and is now back to having nobody in her life to care about.

Living a life full of false truths and cover-ups only leads to destruction in one’s life, Dina

left confused and lonely, living with an aunt she barely knew. As suggested by Dr. Raeburn

maybe it was a survival mechanism, Dinas way of living in this chaotic world but it didn’t leave

her with any good to look forward to. The idea of escaping reality is impossible, the act is

revealed and the web of lies entangling one’s life are exposed, the reality that was left leaves one

disoriented and hopeless. Sometimes one’s way of living is simply just trying to live and nothing

more.

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